Flames of the Phoenix
by silent song of shadows
Summary: AU Harry travelled back in time to hopefully change the outcome of the war, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of defeat. Melody won't admit that she might have fallen for him, but knows that wherever he goes, she will fight with him and stand at his side no matter what cost to her. No horcruxes or hallows, rated for violence and language. Don't own Harry Potter
1. Streams of Time

I don't own Harry Potter or I wouldn't be posting on this sight. I'm only going to write the disclaimer once...

A/N at bottom!

Melody sighed as she took one last look at the stream of the universe she had sent her mother to. It was disappointing, but as she had died in her original world she couldn't return or some unknown disaster would probably happen.

Dead people didn't come back to life.

They could choose to become ghosts, or some necromancer could return them to some semblance of life but there was a divide between death and life that once crossed could not be returned.

Of course, there were some people who claimed that when you died you were reincarnated as someone else, but Melody preferred to stay away from dealing with dead people and focus on the living instead of wasting time theorizing on that kind of stuff.

Lydia Gwetheren had died and would have crossed over completely if it wasn't for the fact that her soul had been removed shortly before her death. This kept her in some kind of suspension in the realm between the universes where she would have stayed alone in the darkness until all the universes expired if Melody hadn't found her.

Technically, she should have left her mother there, but Lydia had helped train her in forms of magic she would need so Melody brought her to another universe to live in thanks.

The relationship between the two of them _definitely _had _nothing _to do with Melody's choice.

And now Melody was going to return to her original universe to try to live her life without anyone finding out that she could travel between universes and see the futures of them that seemed most likely to happen given how the beings acted and the choices that they made.

In her home universe, Melody was studying magic at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry along with her friends Hermione Granger, Lisa Turpin, Blaise Zabini, Ron Weasley and Justin Finch-Fletchley.

And of course, Harry Potter was there as well.

But Melody wasn't sure what to call him.

Up until the afternoon the day before she travelled, she would have called him one of her closest friends.

Then after a failed date with one of the Weasley twins (she had pretty much given up any hope of figuring out which one was which) he had lashed out at her, claimed that she was the daughter of an escaped mass murderer who had almost killed her, and told her to stay away from him.

So much for close friends.

Yet Melody couldn't help hoping that there was some other reason that he had said those things and that he didn't actually dislike/hate her.

She and Harry had been through quite a bit together along with Ron and Hermione, but in their first year it had been Melody who stood with Harry against Voldemort when Ron and Hermione weren't there. She had saved his life when Quirrell tried to buck him off his broom by hitting the possessed teacher with a jinx, even if she had been aiming for someone else at the time. She had also been with Harry in the Forbidden Forest when the shade had attacked them. And at the end of the year, Harry had saved her life when Quirrell captured and tortured her.

Second year had had some tension between the two of them over the whole 'heir of Slytherin' thingy, but when she had again been captured by another possessed person Harry had gone down into the Chamber of Secrets and killed a basilisk to save her and Ron's little sister, Ginny.

Something had changed between the two of them when Melody had woken up in Harry's arms.

She wouldn't consider it being anything 'romantic' between the two of them. Yet Harry's friendship with her felt slightly different from her friendships with her other friends. And now that their friendship looked like it might be over, it really hurt her.

If only he wasn't such a Tomato at times.

Melody turned away from her mother's new universe and walked through the clinging darkness towards her old one.

The universe pulsed brightly with light, signifying that it had many more centuries to go before it died and faded away unlike the one beside it that glowed gently with a darker red shade and was nearing its end.

Melody looked closely at her home universe's timeline, searching for the point she had exited from. She found it among a large group of small circular timestreams that showed the timeturner usage of various people, herself and Hermione included.

Now Melody could understand why she had to be so careful when travelling for classes. If she or Hermione messed up, it would create a separate timestream and they would cease to exist in the other one which would lead to messy situations she'd rather not deal with.

As she stepped back into the time stream, she felt a sudden shiver run down her spine at the touch of chaos magic, the most fickle and dangerous kind that existed.

Each of the universes was made of one base component which Melody, like the other witches and wizards in her universe, called 'magic'. The 'magic users' had the ability to use the surrounding magic to a higher extent that the general population to change things.

Using magic to create a certain effect followed a set structure each time. Thousands of years before Melody was born, wizards had begun writing down the formulas that created these effects and studied to discover what they had in common. Eventually, these studies were put under the heading of 'arithmancy' and the younger witches and wizards studied the written formulas to learn the basis of their spell work.

Naturally flowing from that field of study came the wizards who discovered that by writing their formulas in different ways and tracing the patterns that were created they had a better grasp on using their magic precisely. Languages based off of these discoveries sprang up and were recorded for the following generations who were more interested in developing their spells more than studying the basics and the languages slowly began to fade out of general use and became used for spells only until generations had passed and called the study of those basics Ancient Runes.

Some of the other wizards had turned to studying the plants and animals that had a higher magical saturation and began experimenting with them. These experiments led to a separation of a sorts between the more mundane animals and plants and those considered to be 'magical' as the wizards and witches began to separate themselves from the people who did not have the same abilities as them.

As time went on, the mundane folk began to fear the magic wielding individuals who held the power to end their lives or rule over them. The mundanes began to gather in large numbers and attack the magicals in a struggle of numbers versus magic. The magicals retreated and eventually separated themselves almost entirely from the mundanes, hiding their extraordinary plants and animals as they feared extinction, given that the gift of magic usage seemed to be passed down through blood and their numbers were not as great as those of the mundanes.

The plants and animals they kept hidden with them continued to be studied, giving birth to the studies known as Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.

The natural path to take from those subjects was to combine the two of them to see what ingredients acted together in what ways and why they acted in those ways. Potions and Alchemy were born, both paths receiving some scorn and fear from those wizards who chose to further their studies in spellwork.

Also from the combination of the studies came wand magic. Those wizards who studied spellwork found the potential of using amplifiers such as wands or staffs to help specialize their spellcasting and give them a wider variation of the spells that could be cast.

As more and more wizards began using wands, the spells they used started being placed into different categories and the categories being given names.

The spells that channelled the magic within and around objects in order to animate them came to be known as Charms while those that channelled the magic with the purpose of changing the structures of objects was called Transfiguration.

But with all the experiments that happened, the nature of the wizards and witches lurked behind their motivations and led some of them to search for the darker side of the uses of magic. Potions and Alchemy led to the studies of poisons and elixirs that were made to kill, harm or subdue those the user viewed as enemies. While some studied them with the goal of protection, others saw them as a means of destruction and domination and twisted them to further their own desires of power.

Plants and animals were experimented on as more of these wizards sought to bring out their darker sides. Charms and Transfigurations were studied as ways to bring harm to other living beings and the spells that emerged from those studies were labelled as jinxes, hexes and curses depending on the severity of the damage intended.

Wizards who saw what was happening began to push boundaries in magic to create protections spells, shields, antidotes and warning spells to counteract those who would harm them.

Divisions began to be made between the magic users who focused on the damage that they could cause and those who studied the lighter side of the magics they wielded. Those sides became known as the 'Light' and the 'Dark'.

By the time Melody and Harry started schooling, these divisions had become firmly entrenched and those who called themselves Dark were considered to be evil while those who didn't called themselves the Light and were seen as the good guys.

But the general population seemed to ignore the quiet but subtly growing movement of those who considered themselves neither Light nor Dark, but Grey.

These wizards did not agree with the extents that the Dark side were willing to go to to ensure their goals but mostly agreed with their stances on bringing back the older magics and the way their society should be run. They were willing to use spells that a Light wizard would recoil in horror at and would take a life in battle or seriously injure opponents. But both they and the Light agreed that those of non-magical birth should be trained and part of the wizarding world instead of shutting them out and completely isolating themselves.

Wizards from the Grey tended to either stay out of the fighting between the Light and Dark or joined in with the side they thought was more in the right on a certain issue.

Melody considered herself in the Grey category. She was naturally better at performing spells with darker intent but did not agree with Voldemort's philosophy of killing all those he considered inferior and was willing to use lethal force to fight against him.

Willing, but unsure she'd actually be able to perform the spells if she were actually called on to do so in a fight with a Death Eater.

If the Death Eater were dabbling in or using Chaotic Magic, she would be more than willing to kill him or her. She truly hated Chaotic magic.

Some of the wizards who studied magic had attempted to break down magic itself and recreate it without the structure that most magic had. Arithmancers came up with formulas that would force them to do things like dividing 0 by 0 which could not be processed by using structured magic.

None of the spells invented using that kind of base should have worked. But there were flukes, the exceptions to the rule, spells which were more dangerous than any others and much harder to defend against.

Spells such as the Avada Kedavra, the Cruciatus, the Imperious, and Fiendfyre.

The real reason the first three were known as the Unforgivables was because they used Chaotic magic to create the desired effects and the usage of that type of magic was like poison to the structured magic. The only reason Fiendfyre wasn't labelled an Unforgivable was because the wizard or witch who cast it had to be well versed in Chaotic magic to successfully cast it and most people either went insane or died attempting to study Chaotic magic.

Melody was a half exception to the Chaotic magic using rule. She could not create Chaotic magic or cast spells using it, but she could fight it by using structured magic because of the way she would now be using magic.

Before her trip she had been learning a very structured form of magic based on the studies and discoveries of the wizards and witches who had gone on before her. Now, she was returning to the way they used magic before wands and other amplifiers came into use. She was going to wield magic at its base form without incantations or wands. Melody would still keep her wand for show and possibly use it for minor spells,but she was going to use wandless magic.

Animagi, Elementals, Empaths and others like them were more 'in tune' with magic and were more sensitive to it than the general wizarding community. It didn't necessarily make them more powerful than the other wizards, but they had the potential to cause greater effects and therefore needed to be careful and discipline themselves to avoid causing irreparable damage to those they cared about.

Which is why the Ministry of Magic mandated that Animagi register their forms and people were wary of those with the born gifts. It would be very easy for those talented people to become serious threats if they chose.

It was also why Melody was _not _going to announce to the general public that she was a seer and Firamagus. She would either be locked away 'for her own safety' _*cough, Dumbledore, cough*, _or hailed as the next Dark Lady and feared and hated _*cough, Sheeple, cough*_. Only a few people would be trusted to know and they'd all have to have good Occlumency shields.

There was always the option of moving to another universe to live, but Melody wanted to be here with her friends and Harry.

She really did need to figure out what was going on between the two of them.

O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O

"_You're sure it will work?"_

"_No. As I have told you countless times and you should already know if you would actually pay attention for once instead of being an insufferable dunderhead, Chaotic magic is unpredictable. You will most likely fail and die a painful death."_

"_Isn't that encouraging… I'm definitely going to miss you too."_

"_Sarcasm does not become you."_

"_It wasn't sarcasm. Believe it or not, I'm actually going to miss my old mentor and his grouchy snarkiness. You may not be a nice guy, but you are a good one."_

_The reply was lost as the rays of the blood moon landed on the figure of a man who hovered between life and death, walking the line exactly as he welcomed the rays of magic he had called upon with the help of the older man who had drawn the circular square of Chaotic magic to portal him from that point in the timestream until he was hovering outside of it in thick darkness and fighting his way to an earlier point in what had been his life. He sank back into time, slowly merging with his old self until the two of them were one and the Chaotic magic had no more hold on him._

_As the boy-man opened his eyes, he sighed in relief before a dangerous smile spread over his face._

_It had worked._

_He had returned and was ready to destroy those who had stood in his way last time._

_He had the advantage now._

_The game was afoot._

O0O0O0O0O0O0O0O

In another universe that did not contain people with the ability to manipulate magic to the extent of the witches and wizards of Melody's home universe, Lydia Gwetheren woke up to find herself lying on the shore of a lake.

Melody had succeeded at giving her mother a chance to continue living her life.

**A/N And hello again peoples! Welcome to those of you who are new readers. This is technically a sequel to Darkness of Past, Song of Future, but you don't specifically need to read it to understand what is happening here.**

**I would advise reading it to understand Melody better and to see what happened in the first two and a half years of schooling. I have no intentions of making her into a Mary-Sue or making Harry all-powerful. This is an AU, no horcruxes and no hallows.**

**Reviews are welcomed and appreciated.**

**Also, I could use some OCs if you have a character for me to use. They won't play any major parts, but they will be used if given :)**

**Lemme know what you think and enjoy reading!**

_**Shadow**_


	2. Twisted Goals

"Please wake up… Please don't be dead… Please, no…"

I felt disoriented as I returned from my trip.

I was lying half on the ground and half on someone who was holding me up and talking furiously. There was snow falling lightly on my face and whoever was talking was holding me closely.

It seemed like ages had passed since I had touched the light, but in this universe I had only been gone for a few minutes at the most.

I opened my eyes to see Harry staring down at me with an intense expression on his face like the one he had had when I woke up after the Basilisk incident that turned to shock, then disbelief, and then relief.

"Melody?" He asked hoarsely.

"Hi."

Not awkward at all. And then I realized that we were alone together in a clearing in the Forbidden Forest while the snow fell around us.

"Would you mind letting me get up?" Harry was holding me rather tightly. Not painfully tight, but still too tight for me to move freely. It didn't hurt, but felt weird.

In a sort of a good way.

Harry gingerly released me and I shakily got to my feet, breathing the fresh cold air in as I shook my head to clear it while Harry stood up slowly.

An awkward silence hung over the clearing as he stared at me like I was going to drop dead at any moment.

"Er… Hi?"

"You were kissed by a dementor."

Wait, what?

"I was kissed by a dementor." I repeated blankly. Why would Harry think that? I had fainted when there were dementors around and it had been a big globby thing of light that had taken me away.

"I tried to stop it with a patronus but you ran towards it. Straight towards it." Harry let out a strangled sort of hysterical half laugh of disbelief. "And then you were kissed. You were unresponsive for a good five minutes and then you wake up and act like everything's just fine!"

"I was kissed by a dementor?" I didn't know what to think or say or do.

"YES!" Harry yelled. "AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS 'HI'?!"

I took a slight step back.

"I can say more than 'hi'. I just wasn't sure what to say. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dementor or I wouldn't be here and talking to you."

"Then what was it?" He asked in a falsely calm voice.

"A big glob of light."

"A big glob of light." I nodded. I was feeling rather energized for some strange reason.

"It looked and felt like a dementor."

I shrugged. No harm done. I started to walk back towards the school but paused before I had even taken a step as a thought occurred to me.

"Why did you follow me?"

"What?"

"You told me to never talk to you again. I was supposedly in league with Black and going to betray you."

"I had just discovered that the man who betrayed my parents to Voldemort was their best friend who they trusted above all their other friends and that his daughter was in the same position he was and had been hiding secrets I still didn't know about since first year and then she comes running along and doesn't even bother defending herself from my accusations but runs away and I wanted to get some answers."

I froze, not expecting that answer at all.

Had I really been that secretive?

I hadn't told Harry about her visions, being a Firamagus, part elf or training with Blaise, Lisa and Justin.

"Oh." Was the only thing I could think of to say.

Harry shook his head.

"You have no idea." He whispered. "You were the first person my age to ever be friendly to me. The first friend I ever had besides Hagrid."

Harry hadn't had any friends before me? At all?

"I trusted you. I thought you were my friend. But I guess you never really trusted me." Harry sighed, looking down. "Sorry about the blow up. I guess I shouldn't have expected you to trust me like the close friend I thought of you as."

"I do think of you as a close friend!" I protested. "I'm just- I'm not used- I mean,"

Gah.

How was I supposed to explain the fear that he would desert me once he really knew who I was? In light of what he had just revealed it only proved his point.

"Melody." Harry stepped closer and held up a hand to stop me. "You just said you think of me as a friend. Friends trust each other, even if they have secrets they won't share." He smiled gently. "After all, it would be just asking for problems if you just shared your heart with the first person to call you their friend."

I nodded.

"One of the girls at the orphanage. I told her about some of my magic and she spread nasty stories about me." I whispered.

That actually still hurt.

I hadn't realized how much until I spoke about it.

But then again, when pain came I was more likely to close down and run from it than blow up and face it.

"I didn't know my name was 'Harry' until I started school with Dudley. I thought it was 'Boy'."

I couldn't hold back the half strangled gasp.

"That's awful."

"I got in trouble with the teachers for not responding soon enough. The rest of the students were too afraid of Dudley to befriend me."

"Cowards."

"No, not cowards." Harry shook his head. "Smart. After all, who would want to be friends with me? Not the bloody boy-who-has-too-many-names but just Harry?"

"I do."

Then and there I made up my mind. He may be a real tomato sometimes, but friends stick together especially when they mess up.

I had messed up when it came to trusting Harry and that had led to him getting mad at me.

He still shouldn't have shouted those things, but I wasn't completely blameless.

I was going to be a better friend and stick by Harry.

"You mean it?" He suddenly looked vulnerable.

"I mean it. I'm not going to swear another magical vow in case it causes something bad to happen," something flickered in Harry's eyes as I said that, "But I'm your friend and I'm not going to leave you."

"Brave enough to do hard things and face dangers with me?" He asked teasingly, moping mood vanishing.

"Brave enough to face the Dark Lord." I shot back with a grin, remembering first year.

"Brave enough to face the wrath and might of Hermione Jane Granger?" Harry's smile became slightly guilty.

"Harry, what did you do?" Dark Lords were one thing, our mutual friend was another.

"Nothing completely yet."

"Yet?"

Harry shifted slightly, looking even more guilty before a rustling sound alerted us to the presence of the big black dog with the stick I had thrown for it entering the clearing.

"Hi Padfoot." Harry greeted it.

"This is your dog?" Since when had Harry had a dog?

"My dogfather." He nodded.

"Does it have anything to do with the reason Hermione's after you?"

"Sort of…"

"I ask again: Harry, what did you do?" Harry shrugged.

"I may have left her a note informing her that I'm going on a trip with said dogfather instead of leaving with a proper goodbye."

"Going on a trip?"

"Yep." Harry nodded happily. I looked at the dog and the dog looked at me. I looked back at Harry.

"You're randomly leaving in the middle of the school year to take a trip with a dog."

"He's a special dog."

"How so?"

"Promise not to freak out completely?"

"Sure." It wasn't like the dog would turn out to be an animagus who wanted to slaughter the general population of Hogwarts in their beds.

"Back when my parents went to school, my dad became friends with a werewolf and two other boys. The non-infected boys became animagi so they could spend the full moon with the wolf they nicknamed 'Moony'."

"So he's an animagus."

"An illegal one. But anyways, after graduating my parents joined the fight against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. Did a pretty good job of it too. So good, he decided to go after them personally. A spy informed Fumblebore who informed them and they decided to go into hiding under the Fidelius."

"The one where only the secret keeper can tell a person where whatever you're hiding is?" I interrupted for clarification.

"That one. Unfortunately for them, one of my father's friends turned out to be a spy for Voldemort."

"Sirius Black." I nodded.

"Actually, my dad thought it would be the ultimate prank to tell everyone that it was Sirius and make the other boy, Peter Pettigrew, the actual secret keeper."

"So… they double crossed the general population and then Pettigrew double crossed them?"

"So the Dark Lord showed up at my home and along came the scar." He waved a hand at the item in question. "Sirius showed up after and went after Peter in a fit of fury and grief. Peter yelled for the world to hear that Sirius betrayed my family, cut off his finger and blew up the street before changing into his animagus form and disappearing."

"But…" I frowned. "That would mean… That Black wasn't supposed to go to Azkaban?" I had to be hearing wrong. The man had almost killed me for apple's sake. "And that means that when he escaped, if he was an illegal…"

No.

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no, no.

"Harry?"

"Yes?" He smiled innocently.

"Please tell me that dog is not Sirius Black in his animagus form."

"That dog is not Sirius Black in his animagus form." Harry didn't even bother to stop smiling.

"Scar. Remember?" I pointed at my neck, backing away from the dog that looked like it was shaking with laughter.

"Ah. Right." Harry's face lit up with sudden understanding. "Sirius, change back and apologize to Melody for nearly killing her in that hostage situation."

I backed right into a tree as said dog morphed into crazy criminal who was doing an awful job of trying not to smile.

"I really am sorry about that."

His voice was hoarse from disuse.

There was a long pause where none of us said anything. I was too busy trying to figure out what was going on.

"I think you broke her." Harry deadpanned.

"That's Sirius Black!"

"Yes. I believe we have established that fact." Harry nodded. "And we're going on a trip."

"You're going on a trip with an escaped prisoner in the middle of the school year without telling anyone where it is you're going and leaving me to deal with Hermione." Who was this person and what had he done with Harry?

"Yep. Unless you're coming with us, of course." Harry seemed to be enjoying this too much.

"Sure." His smile finally faded a bit.

"Sure? As in, you're-coming-with-us sure?"

Was I sure?

I sure wasn't going to let Harry go off roaming with someone who might or might not be a murderous criminal on his own. Especially not after our little chat about friends.

"Problem with that?"

Black groaned and Harry laughed.

"Thank you Melody! You just earned me twenty galleons."

"Wait, you bet on whether I was going to come or not?" Harry had just blown up at me the day before over Black, and now he was running off with the man and had even bet on whether I was going to come?

"Harry said you were the most likely to run along with whatever mess he got himself into while still being fairly cool headed. And you're probably the best fighter of his friends."

"Dueller." I corrected Black numbly. "I'm a dueller, not a fighter."

Duellers did better in a calculated setting, one on one matches without outside interference. I tended to get tunnel vision in a fight and lose focus on everything but my opponent.

At least, that was what my mom had deduced from our training time together.

"Whatever." Black waved a hand as though it was unimportant. "Anyways, shall we be going?"

"Onwards and away." Harry slung an arm around my shoulders. "You'll get used to this soon enough."

Bloody oranges. I was actually running off with Harry and Black in the middle of the school year going who knows where.

"See you there!" Black nodded to Harry before twisting and disappearing with a quiet cracking noise.

"Ever apparated before?" Harry asked.

"When Black kidnapped me this summer."

"Right. Great memories I'm sure."

With that, his arm around me tightened and then we were being squeezed uncomfortably before I staggered to stay upright.

"Since when can you aparate?" I couldn't help the question that burst out disbelievingly.

"Several years." Harry smirked before dropping his arm and walking off. I quickly followed him, not wanting to be left alone in an unfamiliar place.

The snow crunched underfoot as we walked along some sort of moor. Black ran up to us in his animagus form and the three of us went off to wherever we were going.

"Where are we?" I finally asked, feeling completely dumb. I was supposed to be a super talented witch and student and here I was totally caught off guard by a suddenly changed Harry Potter.

Why did I think going with him was a good idea again?

"We're in Salisbury, England. And on our way to see Stonehenge."

I didn't even know what to ask anymore.

"Relax, everything's going to be just fine."

"Really?" I didn't mean to sound so disbelieving, but seriously? After a sudden whirlwind of confusion and emotion he just says everything's going to be fine?

"I'm going to make sure of it." I felt a sudden chill looking at him when he said that. For a split second, my friend Harry was gone and in his place was a colder calculating figure with some sort of agenda.

The moment passed so quickly I could have imagined it.

But I hadn't.

Had I?

I froze midstep at the feel of chaos magic just ahead of me. Harry and Black carried on for a few more steps before stopping to look at me.

"Something wrong?"

How was I supposed to explain this? Harry I thought I could tell, but definitely not Black.

"No. I'm fine." I came over to them. It felt like we were skirting the edge of whatever it was emitting the magic as we walked towards the famous stones standing in a circle.

"Stonehenge. Shall we explore?" Harry started going forward but I grabbed his arm.

"Let's not."

I was feeling a higher concentration of the chaos in the area Harry was heading towards.

"Be a Griffindor Melody." Harry smirked. "What's the worst that could happen?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

He'd really have to get that ritual done soon. He had forgotten just how scrawny this body had been before the magical spurt.

And eyesight was terrible and the glasses didn't even help much.

He silently placed a spell on the lenses for clarity, wincing as he felt the strain of using magic while most of the core was bound.

He didn't even want to think about the pathetic state his clothes were in.

A rustling sound from Ron's bed alerted him to the presence of a rat. And not just any rat, but Wormtail. A quick stunner ensured that the traitor wouldn't be going anywhere soon as it was stuffed in one of his pockets.

"Good morning Harry!" Hermione waved to him as he entered the common room. He had to pause a moment at the sight of her as a young teen, so soft and innocent.

"Morning Hermione." She still had those buck teeth that had been cursed by Malfoy in their fifth year during the Triwizard Tournament before being shrunk down to a nice size. It was a disorienting experience to see the woman he had fallen in love with back as a young teen, untouched by the stain of war.

Hermione was looking slightly strained as she exchanged a glance with Ron who was still all arms and legs, not yet having grown into the feared warrior his Ron had been.

"Did you sleep well?" This Hermione hadn't yet learned the art of misdirection and was therefore so obvious in her attempts to sound normal when there was clearly something on her mind.

"Yes. Where's Melody?" That was the person he really wanted to see right then. He wanted to reassure himself that he hadn't lost his old fighting partner.

His other two friends exchanged another glance. He forced himself to remain calm as he waited for them to get their act together. He could put up with these younger versions of his closest friend and fiance seeing as it had been him who was mostly responsible for their deaths.

"Think she went out walking, mate. You really hurt her yesterday."

That was right. Yesterday the old Harry had blown up at her over the stupid reason of her being related to Sirius Black.

Sirius was innocent for Merlin's sake!

But Harry hadn't been able to fully merge with the old Harry completely so he had only prevented the younger version of himself from slapping Melody and completely destroying their relationship.

They hadn't spoken until years later after they had been trapped in a hidden place under secret identities and had had to completely rely on each other. The two of them had been the most deadly fighters for the grey and when they fought together they had been practically unstoppable.

But then Hermione had died and he had snapped. Melody died stopping him from completely destroying Britain.

This time, he wasn't going to let her leave. Their duo could have done so much good if they had worked together from an earlier time.

The fact that it had been Melody who had gotten him and Hermione together and would be able to do so again and prevent him from revealing his travel secrets had absolutely nothing to do with his motivations.

Harry nodded briefly before heading towards the entrance to the common room. If he stayed for much longer, he didn't know if he would have the discipline not to gather Hermione up in an intimate embrace and completely botching everything up.

A simple switching spell later and he was walking down the hallway with Hermione's time-turner while she had a fake. He reached the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and paced back and forth until the door opened. He entered and let the door swing shut before placing the chain of the time-turner around his neck and started turning it back, permitting a dangerous smile to creep onto his face.

He felt the familiar blur of travel before landing a week before.

There was no way he could perform the necessary ritual to unlock the binds on his magic on his own, but that did not mean he was helpless in any way. It only took a simple charm for him to slip through the corridors undetected before crossing the grounds towards the Whomping Willow.

The branches swayed threateningly as he approached before falling silent as a carefully levitated rock hit a knot on one of its roots.

Harry slid into the tunnel, silently making his way up to the main room before opening the door to see a familiar black dog sitting there.

"Hello Padfoot. Can I interest you in a rat for an early christmas gift?"

He dangled Wormtail in front of the dog which swiftly morphed into a ragged looking human.

"Harry? Is that-" He spluttered in disbelief.

"One rat animagus by the name of Peter Pettigrew and your key to being a free man? Definitely."

Sirius lunged for the swinging rodent, missing as Harry stepped to one side.

"Ah-ah-ah…"

He shook his head like he was reprimanding a little child. Perhaps if he had been able to actually get to know Sirius he would have been kinder, but he was finding this situation too amusing to stop.

"Let me kill him!" Sirius practically snarled.

"And take away your only chance of becoming a free man?"

Sirius stopped. He stared at the rat, eyes glittering dangerously. Harry had to admit that Azkaban hadn't been kind to Sirius in any way. The man would probably need therapy before he was ready to rejoin society.

"I'm going to hand him over to the DMLE and then you're going to get a trial and then when your name is cleared…" Harry trailed off with a smirk. "I doubt anyone would suffer if he were to 'disappear' from his cell after the trial."

Sirius gaped at Harry before slowly blinking. Then he threw back his head and started laughing a hoarse, bark like laugh.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Over the course of the week, Harry had successfully implemented the beginning stages of his plans for Padfoot's freedom, the breaking of his magical bonds and his trip around Europe to destroy the artefacts Voldemort had used during the last war to increase his power.

But he had done so much more in that one week that would only produce results months later.

Now it was time for him to start on the trip. He and Sirius had put together a rough travel plan that would continue until at least August to give Harry time to get used to fighting in this body.

Padfoot knew that Harry had time travelled, but that was it. Harry had never gotten to know the animagus as he had been kissed by a dementor the night Harry had learned of his innocence. But Harry thought he'd rather be under the watch of his dogfather than Dumbledore. From the stories he had heard about the Marauders, Padfoot would be a fun addition to his team.

Harry walked out to the steps of the castle courtyard, looking around for Melody.

"Melody!" He called.

There was no reply.

Hadn't Ron said she'd gone outside?

Harry scanned the grounds before calling again. This time, he saw movement in the Forbidden Forest.

So she was trying to hide from him, was she?

All he had to do was go after her and put a positive spin on things to convince her to come along with him.

And get rid of the dementor that was floating in the same direction she had gone in.

Harry started walking quickly before breaking into a run as he reached the edge of the forest and started leaping around the undergrowth and bushes that tried to get in his way. The dementor was hovering ahead of him and moving closer towards Melody who just stood there, not moving.

There was no way he was going to lose his fighting partner to that creature.

"Melody! Get away from it! Expecto Patronum!" He shot his patronus towards the dementor, a silvery phoenix gleaming with ethereal beauty.

"NO!" Melody cried before racing straight towards the bloody dementor.

What the bloody hell was wrong with her?!

The two of them collided and the dementor caught her in its grasp. Melody's entire body shuddered before going limp as Harry's patronus rammed into the dementor, distracting it from its prey. The creature skimmed away and the phoenix faded to nothingness while Harry ran towards Melody.

Had he just lost a key part of his plans already?

Harry dropped to his knees and pulled Melody up on his lap, turning her over and supporting her head as it flopped. She was breathing shallowly, eyes closed.

"Melody, can you hear me?"

There was no response.

Harry grabbed her hand and squeezed, feeling for some reaction but getting none.

"Please wake up… Please don't be dead. Please no…" How was this going to affect his goals?

And then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

Harry froze in shock.

Had they just gleamed gold before returning to their normal blue?

"Melody?" He asked in disbelief. She had been kissed by a dementor, hadn't she?

"Hi." She was actually alive and coherent. He hadn't known she could survive dementors last time. For the most part, she had hidden her many talents well and had passed as a normal witch. But when really needed, she was probably one of, if not the most lethally trained fighter.

To his knowledge, she had never told anyone where she got her training from.

It certainly wasn't Hogwarts.

Had she been training this early already?

"Would you mind letting me get up?"

So this wasn't abnormal to her or anything?

Harry let her go, hiding the calculating thoughts behind a mask of concern. Melody stared back at him. She also looked so much younger than he remembered and the haunted look that had been in her eyes for so long wasn't there yet. She wasn't battle hardened yet.

"Er… Hi?"

Just a forthcoming as he remembered.

"You were kissed by a dementor." Disbelief, shock and confusion would be appropriate responses to show in this sort of situation.

"I was kissed by a dementor." She repeated blankly.

"I tried to stop it with a patronus but you ran towards it. Straight towards it." Harry let out a strangled sort of hysterical half laugh of disbelief. "And then you were kissed. You were unresponsive for a good five minutes and then you wake up and act like everything's just fine!"

He mentally congratulated himself for the superb acting.

"I was kissed by a dementor?"

"YES!" Harry yelled. "AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS 'HI'?!"

Melody took a slight step back, looking uncertain and wary.

"I can say more than 'hi'. I just wasn't sure what to say. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dementor or I wouldn't be here and talking to you."

Not a dementor?

"Then what was it?"

"A big glob of light."

"A big glob of light." Harry repeated, feeling confused for the first time since returning. What variables had already been changed by his actions that might derail his plans?

"It looked and felt like a dementor."

Melody started turning to walk back towards the school but paused before she had even taken a step.

"Why did you follow me?"

"What?"

"You told me to never talk to you again. I was supposedly in league with Black and going to betray you."

Time for the guilt trip.

"I had just discovered that the man who betrayed my parents to Voldemort was their best friend who they trusted above all their other friends and that his daughter was in the same position he was and had been hiding secrets I still didn't know about since first year and then she comes running along and doesn't even bother defending herself from my accusations but runs away and I wanted to get some answers."

"Oh." Melody answered in a small voice, looking stricken. This was pathetically easy. She was putty in his hands.

Now Harry was starting to have second thoughts about using her as a partner. How had someone this naive and innocent turned so jaded and vicious?

"You have no idea." He whispered. "You were the first person my age to ever be friendly to me. The first friend I ever had besides Hagrid. I trusted you. I thought you were my friend. But I guess you never really trusted me." Harry sighed, looking down. "Sorry about the blow up. I guess I shouldn't have expected you to trust me like the close friend I thought of you as."

Cue emotional response.

"I do think of you as a close friend!" Melody protested. "I'm just- I'm not used- I mean,"

"Melody." Harry stepped closer and held up a hand to stop her. "You just said you think of me as a friend. Friends trust each other, even if they have secrets they won't share." He smiled gently. "After all, it would be just asking for problems if you just shared your heart with the first person to call you their friend."

She nodded. Harry mentally rolled his eyes at the transparency she was showing.

"One of the girls at the orphanage. I told her about some of my magic and she spread nasty stories about me." Melody whispered.

And now came the excuses for the lack of trust she was now feeling guilt over. Harry felt no qualms about withholding his experiences, but telling her some of the ones that no longer bothered him would create the illusion of even allies.

"I didn't know my name was 'Harry' until I started school with Dudley. I thought it was 'Boy'."

She instinctively let out a half strangled gasp.

"That's awful."

"I got in trouble with the teachers for not responding soon enough. The rest of the students were too afraid of Dudley to befriend me."

"Cowards."

"No, not cowards." Harry shook his head, ready to give the final blow. "Smart. After all, who would want to be friends with me? Not the bloody boy-who-has-too-many-names but just Harry?"

"I do."

Her declaration came much quicker than he had expected.

"You mean it?" He tried to look as though it was something new to him.

"I mean it. I'm not going to swear another magical vow in case it causes something bad to happen, but I'm your friend and I'm not going to leave you."

His Melody had hated magical vows too. Apparently those roots had come from an earlier time than expected.

"Brave enough to do hard things and face dangers with me?" He asked teasingly, moping mood vanishing.

"Brave enough to face the Dark Lord." She shot back with a grin.

"Brave enough to face the wrath and might of Hermione Jane Granger?" Harry's smile became slightly guilty at leaving her behind. But there was no way he was going to risk Hermione on this trip. She was safer at the castle.

"Harry, what did you do?"

"Nothing completely yet."

"Yet?"

Harry shifted slightly, looking even more guilty before a rustling sound alerted them to the presence of Padfoot, holding a stick in its mouth.

"Hi Padfoot." Harry greeted it.

"This is your dog?" Melody looked confused.

"My dogfather."

"Does it have anything to do with the reason Hermione's after you?"

"Sort of…"

"I ask again: Harry, what did you do?" Harry shrugged.

"I may have left her a note informing her that I'm going on a trip with said dogfather instead of leaving with a proper goodbye."

"Going on a trip?"

"Yep." Harry nodded happily as Melody looked between him and Padfoot. Her expression was amusing.

"You're randomly leaving in the middle of the school year to take a trip with a dog."

"He's a special dog."

"How so?"

"Promise not to freak out completely?"

"Sure."

"Back when my parents went to school, my dad became friends with a werewolf and two other boys. The non-infected boys became animagi so they could spend the full moon with the wolf they nicknamed 'Moony'."

"So he's an animagus."

"An illegal one. But anyways, after graduating my parents joined the fight against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. Did a pretty good job of it too. So good, he decided to go after them personally. A spy informed Fumblebore who informed them and they decided to go into hiding under the Fidelius."

"The one where only the secret keeper can tell a person where whatever you're hiding is?" Melody interrupted.

"That one. Unfortunately for them, one of my father's friends turned out to be a spy for Voldemort."

"Sirius Black."

"Actually, my dad thought it would be the ultimate prank to tell everyone that it was Sirius and make the other boy, Peter Pettigrew, the actual secret keeper."

"So… they double crossed the general population and then Pettigrew double crossed them?"

"So the Dark Lord showed up at my home and along came the scar." He waved a hand at the item in question. "Sirius showed up after and went after Peter in a fit of fury and grief. Peter yelled for the world to hear that Sirius betrayed my family, cut off his finger and blew up the street before changing into his animagus form and disappearing."

"But…" Melody frowned. "That would mean… That Black wasn't supposed to go to Azkaban?" Harry waited with anticipation for her to finish making the connections. "And that means that when he escaped, if he was an illegal…"

The look on her face was priceless.

"Harry?"

"Yes?" He smiled innocently.

"Please tell me that dog is not Sirius Black in his animagus form."

"That dog is not Sirius Black in his animagus form." Harry didn't even bother to stop smiling.

"Scar. Remember?" She pointed at her neck, backing away from Padfoot who had dropped the stick and was shaking with laughter.

"Ah. Right." Padfoot's act of desperation. "Sirius, change back and apologize to Melody for nearly killing her in that hostage situation."

She backed right into a tree as said dog morphed into Padfoot who was failing to look chastised.

"I really am sorry about that."

His voice was hoarse from disuse.

There was a long pause where none of them said anything. Harry smirked as Melody stared at Padfoot unmovingly.

"I think you broke her."

"That's Sirius Black!"

"Yes. I believe we have established that fact." Harry nodded. "And we're going on a trip."

"You're going on a trip with an escaped prisoner in the middle of the school year without telling anyone where it is you're going and leaving me to deal with Hermione."

"Yep. Unless you're coming with us, of course." Harry was enjoying this too much. The war hadn't given much room for levity, but here he could properly enjoy himself.

"Sure." His smile finally faded a bit. Melody was agreeing right off the bat? Harry had bet with Sirius she would agree fairly quickly, but not this quickly. Did she have no sense of self preservation?

"Sure? As in, you're-coming-with-us sure?"

"Problem with that?"

Padfoot groaned and Harry laughed. There was some of the fire he had come to appreciate. Hopefully the trip would install some sense of caution in her.

"Thank you Melody! You just earned me twenty galleons."

"Wait, you bet on whether I was going to come or not?"

Of course they had.

"Harry said you were the most likely to run along with whatever mess he got himself into while still being fairly cool headed. And you're probably the best fighter of his friends."

"Dueller. I'm a dueller, not a fighter."

Interesting that she should make that distinction.

"Whatever." Padfoot waved a hand as though it was unimportant. "Anyways, shall we be going?"

"Onwards and away." Harry slung an arm around her shoulders. "You'll get used to this soon enough."

"See you there!" Padfoot nodded to Harry before twisting and disappearing with a quiet cracking noise.

"Ever apparated before?" Harry asked.

"When Black kidnapped me this summer."

"Right. Great memories I'm sure."

With that, he focused on the spot where he had first started his quest to destroy the anchors two years previously.

"Since when can you aparate?" The question burst out from Melody as soon as they landed.

"Several years." Harry smirked before dropping his arm and walking off while Melody followed him.

The snow crunched underfoot as they walked along towards Stonehenge. Padfoot joined us in his animagus form in case any random people happened to go by.

"Where are we?" Melody finally asked.

"We're in Salisbury, England. And on our way to see Stonehenge."

Harry felt a slight surge of pity at the overwhelmed look on Melody's face. It was a lot for an untested thirteen year old to go through.

"Relax, everything's going to be just fine."

"Really?" She sounded disbelieving.

"I'm going to make sure of it." Harry had his plans and Merlin help those who got in the way.

At that statement, Melody shot him a calculating look before stopping as the neared the perimeter of the circle.

"Something wrong?"

A strange look crossed her face.

"No. I'm fine." Melody seemed to walk with a stance that was ready to fight at a moment's notice.

"Stonehenge. Shall we explore?" Harry started going forward but she grabbed his arm.

"Let's not."

Melody shot a panicked look towards the stones. The entrance to the cavern lay in the centre and Harry wasn't going to stop because she was getting cold feet.

"Be a Griffindor Melody." He smirked. "What's the worst that could happen?" The moment the words left his mouth he regretted them.

The world seemed to freeze for an agonizing moment.

Nothing happened.

But now Harry had jinxed himself and something would go wrong. It never failed.

Padfoot whined softly and Melody let go of his arm.

The ground split open directly under her feet and she vanished into it with a short yelp.

**A/N Updates will be slow, but hopefully around this length. I have exams for school and then I'm starting a job, so I will update when I can.**

**Thank you reviewers, favouriters and followers!**

**I really enjoy knowing other people like this too.**

**Shadow**


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